LA City Council Leaving Over 400 Marijuana Dispensaries Up In Smoke
Yesterday, the LA City Council sent out letters to over 400 medicinal marijuana dispensaries ordering them to close down before June 7th, the date when the city’s newest pot ordinance goes into effect.
Dispensaries and patients aren’t going down without a fight though, with two lawsuits already filed appealing the city’s decision.
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The LA City Council sent out letters to 439 medicinal marijuana clinics and property owners throughout Los Angeles instructing them to shut down their operation before June 7th or face misdemeanor penalties such as 6 months in jail and a $1,000 fine, with dispensaries facing fines of $2,500 per day for operating after the deadline.
Only dispensaries that registered with the city after the moratorium passed in 2007 are allowed to stay open. A little over 180 dispensaries registered, with about 130 still remaining open. Patient’s biggest concern is the limited access they will have to dispensaries.
One lawsuit challenges that the moratorium was illegally extended (which was ruled by a local judge). David Welch, the lawyer representing 36 dispensaries in this lawsuit, said “We’re looking for the court to just acknowledge that our clients are unlawfully discriminated against.”
The second lawsuit is being prepared by a lawyer, Eric Shevin, who represents marijuana patients. “We are putting together a very comprehensive lawsuit to strike down L.A.’s ordinance…There is really nothing that allows medical marijuana patients to be treated differently than, say, Vicodin patients,” says Shevin.
Compliance with the law will also be an issue. “I don’t know what percentage of them are knuckleheads, and because the money is pretty good, we’re not going to get 100% compliance,” says Kevin McCarty, who heads the LAPD’s Gangs and Narcotics Division.
Info courtesy of LA Times
Travis
May 5, 2010 4:38 pm
Bullshit.. I am a patient.. a real patient.. I have been a patient since 2005 and I’m a little upset about this, there is no way that the local government has the right to do anything when the local law say’s it all good.. If they would just tax the dispensaries better it would be fine, but they don’t want to start that battle, it’s very upsetting.. I just hope this doesn’t make more people go back to what they used to do to get meds, which is looking for it on the street, It’s so much safer going to a dispensaries and purchasing your medicine then seeing your local criminal underling and copping some smoke..
Bullshit Los Angeles, Bullshit..
concertconfessions
May 6, 2010 1:24 am
Mayor Lu Parker (I mean Villaragosa) and the CC are nothing short of chicken shit thugs. While SF, Oakland and other city goverments worked with clubs early on to set up safe/fair locations, LA ignored it. Now that it’s out of control, these crooked politicians have over-reacted and it’s just not right. Can someone please explain to me why a club can not be within 1000 feet of a liquor store, yet CVS can sell me Wild Turkey? Likewise, with the amount of taxes paid by these places, is this the day and age to shut down stores in LA? Perhaps CC can go a few blocks from City Hall and fight heroin next? Oh that’s right – won”t happen, as a stoner in a store is way easier to bust then a junkie. SHAME ON YOU LA CITY GOVERNMENT – way to fail the people again.